


Field of Paper Flowers

by tanktrilby



Category: Aldnoah.Zero (Anime)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Happy Ending, M/M, because they deserve it, gdi orangebat give me back my life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-31
Updated: 2015-03-31
Packaged: 2018-03-20 14:33:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3653955
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tanktrilby/pseuds/tanktrilby
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Inaho wonders whether he should correct the misunderstanding. Troyard doesn’t disgust him; the way he’s cradling his arm against his chest, which tells Inaho that it’s likely dislocated at the elbow, does.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Field of Paper Flowers

Two days after his meeting with Princess Asseylum, Inaho cancels all his appointments, gives his personal guard the day off, and makes a call. His secretaries eye him dubiously but hurry to make the adjustments; it’s been a while since he last walked off the map, but it’s a familiar enough drill.

The next day Yuki is idling her jeep outside his house, a smile tugging at the corner of her lips. Something coiled tight around his heart eases when he sees her, and when she hugs him he hugs back and scrunches his eyes tight like he used to when he was a kid. If it surprises her, she doesn’t let on.

He thinks it’s going to be a silent drive, but then Yuki speaks up, not taking her eyes off the road. “Been a while since you asked for a ride.”

Inaho inclines his head. He doesn’t know how much she knows, or has guessed; he’s got a big blind spot when it comes to his sister. For both their sakes, he hopes it’s not much.

“You shouldn’t go if it makes you unhappy,” Yuki says, taking a turn sharply. Inaho looks at her, surprised.

She gives him a sideways smile. “The patch,” she brings up one hand to point at her left eye, and Inaho realizes that his own is already at his, fingers pressing at the cloth of his eye patch. He keeps it there wonderingly as Yuki chuckles at him. “You didn’t use to have any big tells, but now when you’re not sure about something you always scratch at that thing.”

“Huh,” Inaho says, too surprised by not noticing it himself to say much else.

Yuki reaches out to ruffle his hair. “Don’t worry, I don’t think anyone else has caught on yet.” She flashes him a grin. “And ‘sides, I like it. I can finally figure out what you’re thinking.”

Inaho feels his lips curve in a smile. “Only for about three per cent of the time, Yuki-nee.”

“Oh shut up, it totally counts.” She rolls her eyes. “Anyway, here we are.”

She pulls into a smooth stop in front of the mansion, and Inaho watches the staff begin to scurry about frantically. Yuki must have seen the same thing, because she comments, offhandedly, “You really should learn to tell people in advance when you’re showing up, Nao-kun.”

Inaho smiles noncommittally. He moves to get out of the jeep, but is stopped by her hand on her wrist.

“Tell me someday what makes you so unsure but you keep coming back to anyway?” she says.

Inaho’s eyes widen. She keeps smiling, waiting for an answer, so he clears his throat. “I…will try.”

Yuki giggles a little. “Guess that’s the best I’m going to get out of you.” She pats him on the shoulder. “Now, go show them who’s boss, Nao-kun.”

“Yes, Yuki-nee,” he monotones, and smiles when she laughs.

After getting out, he watches her pull out of the parking space and waves when she honks her horn twice. It’s not until the gates have been re-closed and locked that Inaho reaches up to touch his eye patch once, reassuring himself.

Pace purposefully brisk, he strides inside the facility.

*

Inaho knows that one of his greatest assets is his near-perpetual outward composure, able to strictly control what he displays on his face no matter the situation. But it’s only halfway into the week and his poker face has slipped out twice: once in the meeting with Count Cruhteo and the princess on Monday, and now, when Slaine Troyard shuffles into the room.

He knows his lip has curled, but it’s too late to smooth it out. The guards see it, the warden sees it, and even Slaine Troyard’s thousand yard stare seems to pick up on it. Some spark enters those shockingly blue eyes; for a second, Inaho remembers the steely count who had stood up like an impenetrable wall in front of the whole of earth, and declared, _we will make you know what it’s like to have no home to go back to._

But then it’s gone, and there’s the quiet brokenness again. “Kaizuka-san,” he says.

Inaho wonders whether he should correct the misunderstanding. Troyard doesn’t disgust him; the way he’s cradling his arm against his chest, which tells Inaho that it’s likely dislocated at the elbow, does.

Inaho’s jaw clenches tight. He’d known peripherally that this was going on, but it had all been so subtle before- a bruise here, a scratch there. He also knows that the guards aren’t solely to blame either; after the war the public needed someone to hate, and the world leaders and the media neatly parceled all the evils of war and  labeled it with Slaine Troyard’s name. It would have been efficient enough if Troyard had actually been dead; Inaho doesn’t believe that dead men hold grudges. But Slaine is very much alive and looks far too fragile to bear the brunt of the hate of the new world.

It’s then that Inaho makes his decision. He’s been called spontaneous by people who don’t understand that every one of his actions is the consequence of all the data he has at hand, that he can’t turn it _off_ and become an irrational being. He sees Troyard’s slender shoulders, hunched up like wings; he sees the open dislike in the guards’ eyes; finally, he examines himself and finds that he _hates_ this, the injustice of it.

He stands up. “Troyard-san,” he says. “Will you join me for a game of shogi after dinner?”

He moves forward, raising his hands to show that he’s unarmed. Troyard’s frowning at him, suspicion lighting his eyes. “I’m afraid I don’t know the rules,” he says in an even voice.

Inaho nods. “I could teach you, if you want.”

Troyard’s eyes widen even further when Inaho kneels in front of him. He’s thinner than Inaho had feared, all sharp bones as Inaho clinically moves his hand over his arm. It’s quick, impersonal- with a quick jerk, Inaho slots Slaine’s elbow back in place. Slaine makes a noise of surprise and pain, and cuts himself off by biting down on his lip.

Inaho steps back and reseats himself. Troyard is looking down at his arm, his long hair falling forward and covering his expression. Inaho feels a stab of cold uncertainty prickle along his spine- catches himself as his hand rises to touch his eye patch.

“Thank you, Kaizuka-san,” Troyard says presently. His eyes meet Inaho’s, and there’s something there that Inaho almost recognizes. “You mentioned dinner. Does that mean you’ll be staying the night?”

Out of the corner of his eye, Inaho watches as the realization dawns slowly on the staff, and as they respond with vague panic.

“Commander, we- you couldn’t possibly-”

Inaho looks at them, face blank, and they fall silent instantly. He turns back to Troyard and finds that the surprise is enough to make his mental calculations all visible on his expressive face.

It’s a fascinating expression. Inaho isn’t sure, but he thinks this might be part of Troyard’s enigma; how he made those proud heads bend in his wake. There’s something compelling about him that Inaho can’t put his finger on.

“I’m actually moving here, permanently,” Inaho says and watches those long pale eyelashes lower, shuttering in the look in Slaine’s eyes. The staff are less guarded, and he notes their shock before any of them say anything.

“Sir, you couldn’t- this place isn’t fit for inhabitation-“

Inaho patiently waits for them to subside. “This place used to be a castle, so I assume you’ll find some space for me somewhere. If this can’t be done by tonight, I’ll just go home and come back tomorrow. My personal transport will be coming with me, as it’s quite a distance from here to the headquarters.”  

“An inconvenience,” Slaine Troyard says softly. There’s too much in his tone that Inaho can’t identify, but he thinks he hears the weariness of a caged animal with its back to the wall. He isn’t pleading for death anymore, but only because he knows Inaho will refuse.

Inaho shakes his head. “Only in terms of distance. I can wake up a little earlier.”

There’s a split second when he’s certain that Troyard is going to lunge across the table and throttle straight answers out of him. But after a tense moment, Slaine nods a little, and looks up. His eyes are the color of clear blue skies.

“If we’re to live together, let’s take care to get along,” he says, resigned, and Inaho tries to speak, and finds that he can’t.

*

Time passes. Inaho thinks that Slaine’s world expands drastically after the weekend when he moves his private library to the mansion. Since Inaho moved in, he’s been allowed to move around in certain rooms accompanied by a guard, but after Inaho shows him the library he’s scarcely to be found anywhere else. Inaho knows that a lot of the staff disapprove of how much freedom he gives Slaine, but anyone who sees him in the library knows that escaping is the last thing on his mind.

They play chess, a lot. Slaine has a knack for seemingly illogical decisions guided by emotion that actually are frighteningly well thought-out.  Inaho beats him most of the time anyway, but only because Inaho has contingency plans for everything, and even the outcomes that take him by surprise are ones he’d more or less foreseen in his head.

Slaine doesn’t seem to mind. Or rather, Inaho can’t shake the feeling that each match is Slaine taking a step closer to understanding his thought process, and he feels those blue eyes on him every time, watching like a hawk. Inaho knows how the world works but he thinks Slaine’s talent might far outshine his- Slaine can read people, grasp their motivations and ideals in a handful of conversations.

Inaho has his own set of misgivings, but he has no time to worry about a defeated enemy when he’s pressed in all directions by other concerns. Worldwide peace is still young, coltish and stumbling on its own feet. The talks with the Knights aren’t going well, especially since they’d found out about the Aldnoah Reactors. The princess is beginning to see that peace is more than a cessation of hostilities, though it’s a start, and he feels like he spends most of his time explaining things, rewording them over and over until he’s drowning in context and interpretation.

The hour-long drive back home crackles with tension on the day of his first argument with Cruhteo. He storms where he usually strides and shuts down all the computers as he goes, until the only noise in his wing of the mansion is his own uneven breathing.

He takes a shower, too antsy for a bath, and when he comes out something comes flying at him. Startled, his hand reaches out automatically to catch it. He looks down and then back up, across the hallway, where Slaine is leaning against a doorframe with a hardcover book in his hand.

“Slaine-san,” he says, and Slaine nods politely. “Where did you get this?”

“I’m growing them,” Slaine admits. “I slipped in the order to the last batch of books, I hope you don’t mind.” Inaho shakes his head, and Slaine’s lips quirk in a half-smile. “They’re quite delicious, try it.”

Inaho looks back at the orange in his hand. “I didn’t realize you had such a strong sense of irony, Slaine-san.”

Slaine looks uncertain for a second, as if unsure whether he’s being teased. Inaho looks up and stares at him blankly, until Slaine’s lips begin twitching.

“I swear it was unintentional. I…I’ve never had oranges before.” Inaho keeps staring, and Slaine colors. “Inaho-san, please stop, you know what I meant.”

Inaho inclines his head, smiling faintly down at the floor. It's...comfortable, trading subtle jabs until Slaine's sense of propriety kicks in. Inaho sometimes builds elaborate lies about Earth customs just to watch Slaine become speechless with horror. “Your form of revenge is surprisingly petty.”

Slaine makes a noise, and Inaho’s surprised to find him shaking his head, looking distressed. “I bear no ill-will towards you, Inaho-san, surely you know that. I am in your debt.”

 _This_ jolts him, reducing him into wide-eyed shock. “You…pardon?”

“Your treatment of me has been far above what a criminal of war deserves. However much I oppose to being alive, I can’t deny that you have made it so that the life you granted me is a peaceful one. You are a kind man, Kaizuka Inaho.”

Inaho looks away from his bowed head. “I haven’t done anything especially kind. Just human.”

“And you treat me as a human as well, on equal footing,” Slaine insists. “Please accept my gratitude, Inaho-san.”

Something flashes inside him. Despite his better instincts telling him to let this go, he bites out, “I beat you in your _war._ ”

Slaine’s eyes widen. “…Inaho-san?”

“I don’t believe in persecuting you for your ideals, only for what you did in their name,” Inaho says coldly. “And that is why you lead this existence, cut off from everyone you loved, branded as a villain when it so easily could have been the other way around. But you still believe you aren’t suffering enough.”

The light in Slaine’s eye snuffs out gradually. Inaho watches, stomach churning, as the smiling man in front of him is replaced by the convict of nearly a year ago, when he only opened his mouth to beg to be killed. He feels violently sick.

“Klancain…no, Count Cruhteo,” Slaine corrects himself. “He said something, didn’t he?”

Inaho rips his eyes away. It’s hard to look at him like this. “Not now. A while ago. Before I moved in.”

A pause, while Slaine processes this. Inaho looks at the line of pretty vases on delicate tables along the hallway and tries not to feel guilty.

“So you know about the way I was raised,” Slaine says, in the same flat, dead voice. “I thought you had me on suicide watch anyway, Inaho-san. There was no need to go to such lengths.”

“Suffering isn't the only way to repent, and death isn't the only alternative.” He remembers Slaine screaming, _why did you save me?_ and the nausea building in his stomach grows. “Since you’re not permitted to die, this was the closest thing I could give you.”

The words _I_ and _give_ catch on his throat. He’d been trying to keep it impersonal, a matter of pure common sense and accepted human behavior, but Slaine’s dull resignation shakes something loose inside him that he wasn’t aware existed. Slaine’s fate had, for so long, seemed to him to be perfect justice, served without bias of human emotion. But now that he’s been tangled in bureaucracy and has to build the foundations of the peace he fought for, Inaho sees that there never was one universal truth. _He_ has to decide what’s right and wrong, for himself, and act accordingly.

And this is his decision. He doesn’t want Slaine to wither away and die broken. No human deserves the fate Slaine decided for himself.

Movement catches his eye, and he looks up. Slaine is closer to him than before, and he can’t see his eyes.

Carefully, Slaine reaches out, and Inaho stiffens questioningly. Slaine’s hands are gentle in his as he eases out the orange Inaho had been squeezing in his distraction and sets it on the pretty table with the vase.

“Slaine-san, what—“

“And that’s what makes you kind,” Slaine breathes. Inaho can feel the warmth of his body through both their thin T-shirts, and shudder runs up his spine, electric. He stares down the bare inch at Slaine’s face, at his impossibly blue eyes now shimmering up at him, his hiked-up lips, and his skin feels like it caught on fire.

Slaine leans up, and close, and Inaho’s brain turns into a static-y hum. Slaine says his name, once, and Inaho feels himself make a soft sound back, quietly yearning.

After what feels like hours, Slaine’s eyes finally flutter shut, and he closes the final distance to kiss him.

Slaine’s lips are warm, soft, and he moves his mouth with a determined focus; he’s done this before, but not a lot. Inaho watches the gathering color on his cheeks, the graceful dip of his eyelashes, and his hands come up automatically to cup Slaine’s face.

Slaine draws back, questioning, the blush now luminous on his face. “…Inaho-san?”

Inaho finds his voice buried somewhere in his stomach. “I hope you taste like oranges,” he says, and Slaine squeaks, his blush deepening and spreading to his collarbones.

Inaho lets himself smile before he kisses Slaine again, closed-eyed and warm and wonderful.

**Author's Note:**

> As usual, blame the horrible incredible peeps at the chat for the ideas (you know who you are)
> 
> Thanks for reading!


End file.
